


the best part of believe is the lie (I need to keep you like this in my mind)

by driedupwishes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, M/M, implied future death of characters maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 12:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3134159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedupwishes/pseuds/driedupwishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi reaches for the longer, heat worn belts that Eren wears and Eren curls his fingers carefully around the clean, creased leather that belongs to Levi. It should be difficult to buckle someone’s straps on them while they’re buckling yours on you, but Levi and Eren take turns, fixing belts into place with steady hands, knuckles brushing skin and fabric with slow, careful weight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the best part of believe is the lie (I need to keep you like this in my mind)

They dress in silence, both grateful they had been given the chance to sleep in the same bed the night before. The sun has not risen, but around them other soldiers in other rooms wake and dress and prepare themselves for the day. By sunrise they will all be lined up, geared up, and ready to face whatever lies before them, together for possibly the last time.

They’re not ready. Both are barely in their pants, shirts still on the bed, and they dress without meeting the other’s eyes. The only sound is cloth sliding over skin, until there is no more cloth, just their belts piled together at the foot of the bed. Levi reaches for the longer, heat worn belts that Eren wears and Eren curls his fingers carefully around the clean, creased leather that belongs to Levi. It should be difficult to buckle someone’s straps on them while they’re buckling yours on you, but Levi and Eren take turns, fixing belts into place with steady hands, knuckles brushing skin and fabric with slow, careful weight.

When the belts are all buckled Eren curls his warm, strong fingers against Levi’s throat and straightens his cravat with three crooked little twitches. Levi’s cool, slimmer fingers press against Eren’s collarbone as he carefully tucks the basement key Eren has managed to keep a hold of for all these years back into his shirt. Eren ducks his head as Levi rubs his thumb along the chain, leaning forward until their foreheads bump gently and their breaths mingle. Eren’s lashes are long enough to brush Levi’s cheeks as he closes his eyes, the feeling of which tickles down the older man’s spine in little jolts.

Both take this moment to savor what they’re feeling. Eren revels in the hunch of his own shoulders as he bends to meet Levi and cherishes the tight, warm feeling in his chest. Levi focuses on the way he presses down the toes of his boots to stretch up, meeting Eren as best he can, because the damn fool has grown into a giant since joining the corps, with shoulders that are broad enough to support the weight of the expectations pressed down upon him. Both are different from the people they had been, briefly catching gazes by the plugged up wall before meeting in the dungeon basement of that courtroom; both are older, more worn and weary than they had been before, but there are other changes too.

Eren knows the sound of Levi’s soft laughter and the way it builds, if he lets it, until it rumbles like distant thunder on the horizon, powerful and daunting. Levi knows how Eren’s voice catches as he sings the songs his mother once sang. Both know the way the other sighs in their sleep, the toss and turn of a mind ensnared in nightmares, the dangerous waves of their lover’s anger and the sweet swells of their good moods. There is so much that has been said and yet so much yet to be said.

So much that will be unsaid, if things go wrong, but they are both trying as hard as they can to avoid this thought. This thought leads to madness and if this is to be their last moment of peace then it will be free of that nonsense.

Footsteps are heard outside their door. Their time is short and the sun creeps up upon the world outside their window. They must hurry or they will be late, but Eren backs up, sits down on the bed and lets his shoulders drop, relaxed and easy, just for a moment. Things must be done today that will never be undone, things that could end in their deaths, and he wants to keep the image of Levi like this in his mind.

“Eren,” Levi says finally, voice shattering the silence, robbing them both of their peace. Eren swallows roughly, shoulders tensing again, and Levi tracks the motion with his eyes. He memorizes the slope of the younger man’s shoulders, the dip in his collarbone, the way his foot trembles as he thinks, restless in his movement even now; all these things Levi knows and yet fears he will forget.

“Eren,” Levi repeats, intent on continuing the sentence, but Eren smiles at him, lopsided, eyes half lidded and hands relax on his thighs. The sentence stops itself before he can properly begin it, a whisper of smoke in his lungs that leaves a taste faintly like ashes on his lips.

He cannot stand the image of Eren upon the pyre, to burn into nothing more than crisp bones and filthy ash. But the thought of there being nothing to burn, torn to pieces or lost forever, is even worse in a way. Eren, too, is plagued by images of Levi’s death, though he sees blood spray across a titan’s hand, limp limbs that dangle swords and wires like a broken toy. He swallows past these thoughts, uses all his strength of will to push the madness that lies in that direction as far from him as possible.

“Everything will be fine,” Eren says, standing up. Towering tall above Levi, hair curling against the back of his neck, bound by a spare tie one of the girls had given him when he had decided to stop cutting his hair, Eren catches the weak morning light coming through the window until he’s haloed in it. So much like the monster he becomes and yet the most terrifying thing about him is how human he is, blood and bones and all the breakable bits in between.

Eren thinks Levi has never seemed so far away, not even when he had seen him perched upon a titan’s back after saving them. Eren remembers the man he had thought Levi was, light shining around him as Eren’s world slipped into darkness, and those memories are vivid in his mind as the light highlights the dip in Levi’s lips, the only tell to his frown.

“Brat,” Levi starts to say and Eren’s lips twitch, because Levi calls him brat when he’s worried and idiot when he’s feeling fond and Jaeger when he’s mad. Eren leans in to taste the way the word feels against his lips, pressing himself forward as Levi curls his hands around the belts on his chest and uses them to pull him further into the kiss.

Eren puts his belief in Levi, the way he always has, because of his skills and his strength, but also because of his heart. He puts his belief that everything will work out, that they will survive, that later they will meet in this room and peel each other out of their gear and that there will be a heartbeat in his ear as he falls asleep. When the sun rises and he wakes, Levi will be there with him.

Levi puts his belief in the monster underneath this boy-turned-man’s skin and the rage he knows is bottled up in his heart. There are no scars on Eren’s skin, but Levi has seen the damage inside of him, has seen the younger man turn that anger and hurt into motivation and determination, and that is what he puts his belief in. When his gas runs out and his blades are all broken, it will be Eren who will save him.

Someone knocks on their door, says nothing, and then leaves. It is their only warning. They corps will be moving soon and the day will begin. Neither knows how it will end until it ends, but they have their fears and doubts battling with their beliefs as they pull away. Eren swallows, reaching up to cup Levi’s face, skin warm and soft despite years of training and battle. He does his best to steady his suddenly racing heart, but despite the control that has been hounded into him over the years it thunders like a spooked horse.

“Everything will be fine,” Eren promises, belief catching in his throat.

Levi doesn’t tell him that the years have not made him any better at lying. After all he needs to believe the lie just as Eren does. He makes a rough sound in his throat that’s supposed to be a snort and pulls away, reaching for his jacket as he turns.

“Of course it will, brat,” Levi says. Eren smiles and says nothing, instead following his lover and leader out of the room, down the hall, and out into the dawn light.

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to fall out boy for like six fucking hours and these lines kept jumping out at me and so i wrote this and then i spent like seven more goddamn hours singing these lyrics even though i was DONE WITH WRITING THIS and yeah. ugh. fall out boy. i love them so much.
> 
> but anyway. i couldn't decide who to kill, so i'm leaving it up to you. does eren die??? does levi die??? do they both die in different areas of the battlefield, crawling and fighting and aching, desperately trying to keep the image of how they looked in that pre-dawn light with the crooked grin and dark eyes, all the meanwhile hoping like hell the other is safe??? only you can tell!!!
> 
> (fyi if you wanna drop me a comment on your idea for the end, i would love to hear it. jam with me about sad angsty deaths, guys. please.)
> 
> i'm personally not sure about where i ended up, but i have a tendency to ramble in the ends of fics and wanted it to cut short before i could add another hundred words on and drag it through the mud owo


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